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Related to: 'There Was a Time'

Hodder & Stoughton

A Morse Code Set

Frank White

Authors:

Frank White

Frank White's powerful first novel was originally published in 1964. Against a strongly evoked backdrop of Manchester at the time of the Second World War, it is a compelling story of a family torn apart. It makes a fascinating companion piece to the author's new novel - written more than fifty years later! - about a Lincolnshire village living in the shadow of the war, There Was A Time.Freddy is thirteen years old in 1939, when the close comfort of his family life is breached by his father being called up to the Army. His mother is emotionally unable to cope with the separation, and becomes withdrawn and depressed. When Freddy's beloved morse code set, which his father built, is broken, it is almost as if all lines of communication have failed. Then the father of one of Freddy's friends offers to repair the morse code set.Has the boy brought healing or tragedy into the family home?A Morse Code Set is a short, intense novel by a writer with an acute eye and ear for family relationships and a superb sense of storytelling.

Alexandra Raife

Amitav Ghosh

Amitav Ghosh was born in Calcutta and grew up in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India. He studied at the universities of Delhi and Oxford, has taught at a number of institutions and written for many magazines. The first novel in the Ibis trilogy, Sea of Poppies, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2008. In 2015, Amitav Ghosh was named as a finalist of the Man Booker International Prize.

Anna Jacobs

Anna Jacobs grew up in Lancashire and emigrated to Australia, but still visits the UK regularly to see her family and do research, something she loves. She is addicted to writing and figures she'll have to live to be 120 at least to tell all the stories that keep popping up in her imagination and nagging her to write them down.She's also addicted to her own hero, to whom she's been happily married for many years.She is the bestselling author of over sixty novels and has been shortlisted for several awards. Pride of Lancashire won the Australian Romantic Book of the Year Award in 2006, and The Trader's Wife is on the shortlist for the 2012 award.You can find out more on her website, www.annajacobs.com or on her Facebook page, www.facebook.com/Anna.Jacobs.Books.

Clare Morrall

Clare Morrall's first novel, Astonishing Splashes of Colour, was published in 2003 and shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize that year. She has since published the novels Natural Flights of the Human Mind, The Language of Others, The Man Who Disappeared, which was a TV Book Club Summer Read in 2010, The Roundabout Man and After the Bombing.Born in Exeter, Clare Morrall now lives in Birmingham. She works as a music teacher, and has two daughters.

David Benioff

David Benioff is the co-creator of the HBO TV series Game of Thrones, based on the books from George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. He is also the writer of the screenplays for the films Troy, Stay, X-Men Origins: Wolverine and The Kite Runner.He adapted his first novel, The 25th Hour, into the screenplay for Spike Lee's popular feature film of the same name. His historical fiction novel City of Thieves and short story collection When the Nines Rolled Over received critical acclaim. He lives in Los Angeles and New York City.

Dorothy L Sayers

Dorothy L Sayers was born in Oxford in 1893, and was both a classical scholar and a graduate in modern languages. As well as her popular Lord Peter Wimsey series, she wrote several religious plays, but considered her translations of Dante's Divina Commedia to be her best work. She died in 1957.www.sayers.org.uk

Elizabeth Goudge

Elizabeth de Beauchamp Goudge was born on April 24th 1900 in Wells, Somerset, where her father was Principal of Wells Theological College. Although she had privately intended writing as a career, her parents insisted she taught handicrafts in Oxford. She began writing in her spare time and her first novel ISLAND MAGIC, set in Guernsey, was a great success here and in America. GREEN DOLPHIN COUNTRY (1944) projected her to fame, netting a Literary Guild Award and a special prize of £30,000 from Louis B. Mayer of MGM before being filmed.In her later years Elizabeth Goudge settled in Henley-on-Thames. She died on April 1st, 1984.

Gyles Brandreth

Gyles Brandreth is a writer, performer, former MP and government whip whose career has ranged from hosting Have I Got News For You to starring in his own award-winning musical revue in London's West End. Currently a reporter with The One Show on BBC1 and a regular on Radio 4's Just a Minute, his acclaimed Victorian detective stories - THE OSCAR WILDE MURDER MYSTERIES - are now being published in nineteen countries around the world and are currently in development for TV. All six books in the series, OSCAR WILDE AND THE CANDLELIGHT MURDERS, OSCAR WILDE AND THE RING OF DEATH, OSCAR WILDE AND THE DEAD MAN'S SMILE, OSCAR WILDE AND THE NEST OF VIPERS, OSCAR WILDE AND THE VATICAN MURDERS and OSCAR WILDE AND THE MURDERS AT READING GAOL are available from John Murray. You can find out more about the Oscar Wilde Murder Mysteries at www.oscarwildemurdermysteries.com and about Gyles Brandreth at www.gylesbrandreth.net

Jake Arnott

Jake Arnott was born in 1961, and lives in London. He is the author of THE LONG FIRM, published by Sceptre in 1999 and subsequently made into an acclaimed BBC TV series. His second novel, HE KILLS COPPERS, was also made into a series by Channel 4. He has since published the novels TRUECRIME, JOHNNY COME HOME, THE DEVIL'S PAINTBRUSH and THE HOUSE OF RUMOUR.

James Jackson

James Jackson has written six pervious thrillers including the acclaimed BLOOD ROCK, PILGRIM, REALM and PERDITION (all available from John Murray). His non-fiction works include The Counter-Terrorist Handbook. A former political risk consultant and a postgraduate in military studies, he was called to the Bar, and is a member of the Inner Temple.

Jill Paton Walsh

Jill Paton Walsh, born in 1937, is also the author of many non-crime novels for adults: the fourth of these, Knowledge of Angels, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Before writing for adults she made a career as a writer of children's books and has won many literary prizes.www.greenbay.co.uk

Lavie Tidhar

Lavie Tidhar is the World Fantasy Award-winning author of the controversial, widely-translated alternate history novel Osama, and of many other works which straddle the boundaries between history, fantasy and reality. He has written comics for Titan Comics and others, as well as screenplays, numerous short stories, and a volume of poetry. He has won a British Fantasy Award for his fiction, a BSFA Award for his non-fiction, and was nominated variously for the Campbell, Sturgeon, Sidewise and Geffen awards. He has travelled extensively but currently lives in London.

Marina Fiorato

Marina Fiorato is half-Venetian. She was born in Manchester and raised in the Yorkshire Dales. She is a history graduate of Oxford University and the University of Venice, where she read for a master's degree in Shakespeare. After university she studied art and worked in the film and music industries, creating visuals for U2, The Rolling Stones and the Queen musical We Will Rock You. Her novels Daughter of Siena and Beatrice & Benedick were shortlisted for the Romantic Novelists' Association Historial Fiction Award. Marina was married on the Grand Canal and lives in north London with her husband, son and daughter. You can find out more about Marina and her writing at www.marinafiorato.com and follow her on Twitter @marinafiorato

Mary Stewart

Mary Stewart was one of the 20th century's bestselling and best-loved novelists. She was born in Sunderland, County Durham in 1916, but lived for most of her life in Scotland, a source of much inspiration for her writing. Her first novel, Madam, Will You Talk? was published in 1955 and marked the beginning of a long and acclaimed writing career. In 1971 she was awarded the International PEN Association's Frederick Niven Prize for The Crystal Cave, and in 1974 the Scottish Arts Council Award for one of her children's books, Ludo and the Star Horse. She was married to the Scottish geologist Frederick Stewart, and died in 2014.

Michael Arnold

Michael Arnold lives in Hampshire with his wife and young son. His childhood holidays were spent visiting castles and battlefields but his fascination with the civil wars was piqued partly by the fact that his hometown and region of Hampshire are steeped in civil war history. You can find out more about Michael Arnold at www.hodder.co.uk or www.michaelarnold-net, or follow him on Twitter at @MikeArnold01.

Peter Robinson

Peter Robinson's DCI Banks is now a major ITV1 drama starring Stephen Tompkinson (Wild at Heart, Ballykissangel) as Inspector Banks, and Andrea Lowe (The Bill, Murphy's Law) as DI Annie Cabbot. Peter's standalone novel BEFORE THE POISON won the IMBA's 2013 Dilys Award as well as the 2012 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel by the Crime Writers of Canada. This was Peter's sixth Arthur Ellis award. His critically acclaimed DCI Banks novels have won numerous awards in Britain, the United States, Canada and Europe, and are published in translation all over the world.Peter grew up in Yorkshire, and now divides his time between Richmond and Canada. Peter keeps a website at www.inspectorbanks.com.

R. F. Delderfield

R. F. Delderfield was born in South London in 1912. On leaving school he joined the Exmouth Chronicle newspaper as a junior reporter, where he went on to become Editor. From there he began to write stage plays and then became a highly successful novelist, renowned for brilliantly portraying slices of English life. With the publication of his first saga, A HORSEMAN RIDING BY, he became one of Britain's most popular authors. Many of his bestselling novels were later adapted for television. He died in 1972.

Robyn Young

Robyn Young was born in Oxford and grew up in the Midlands and Devon. She has a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Sussex and lives and writes in Brighton full-time. Her first novel, BRETHREN, was the bestselling hardback debut novel of 2006, with the paperback also going straight into the top ten bestseller list. Two more bestsellers followed, CRUSADE and REQUIEM, completing the Brethren trilogy, which has now sold over a million copies and been translated into nineteen languages.The inspiration for Robyn's new trilogy, which began with INSURRECTION and continues in RENEGADE, grew out of an earlier research trip to Scotland. Robyn explains: 'Day by day, out of the pages of history and the wild landscape, one figure came striding, larger, clearer than all the others - Robert the Bruce. He swept me off my feet and carried me into a story of bitter family feuds, two civil wars and the struggle for the crown. I realised there was no way this character could play a cameo role in another man's story. His tale was too powerful, too intricate and too good to be cut down and boxed to fit.'To find out more about Robyn Young and her historical novels, visit her website at www.robynyoung.com and her Facebook page at www.facebook.com/RobynYoungAuthor and follow her on Twitter @RobynYoung36

Roderick Bailey

Dr Roderick Bailey is a historian, broadcaster and bestselling author. A professional historian at the University of Oxford, Roderick is a leading expert in the history of Britain's Special Operations Executive (SOE). His previous books include the critically acclaimed The Wildest Province, about SOE exploits in the Nazi-occupied Balkans, Target: Italy, the groundbreaking history of SOE's cloak-and-dagger war on Mussolini, and three bestselling volumes in the Imperial War Museum's Forgotten Voices series.